Why Butter 101? Because I love butter. So did my grandmother. And her grandmother before her. There is nothing more nourishing on the planet that is so easy to obtain. Since 1926, consumption of butter has dropped precipitously, at the same time cancer and heart disease has soared. It’s not because of butter! Eat more butter my friends!

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Letter to the editor of US Wellmeats

Today I was reading my weekly newsletter from US Wellness Meats and was so struck by this letter that was written by one of their customers that I wanted to share it with THE WORLD. It is very well written without being preachy. Please take a few moments to read below and consider the costs of buying meats (including poultry and fish) from Confinement Feeding Operations vs the costs of supporting our small farmers who practice sustainable farming techniques. Those costs include your health!Please feel free to share this blog, but especially this letter with your email address book.I am off to eat some pastured sausage - yummmm!Cynthia

Hi John,

You know, I've been thinking recently about our eating habits as a nation, including Canada in this... your email on the red meat media attack makes me want to share my thoughts...

We want the cheapest price for the most food, and we don't care how we get it. We don't care what kind of terrible conditions the animals live in, what drugs they're given to keep them alive and grow as big as possible, to make the most money for the corporation that grows them. They have no business being called a farm, farmers care about their animals, these corporations only care about money, at any cost, to animal or the human who consumes the contaminated product they manufacture.

It is no wonder if people are getting sick from red meat, because it is primarily this red meat-like product that most Canadians and Americans consume. We don't want to pay too much for it, so we can afford that designer handbag or whatever it is we think we need. We want as much food for as little as we can spend, we don't want to give up any more of our budget for food than is absolutely necessary.

If we'd all think twice about what is really important, we'd all realize that it is our responsibility as consumers to make sure that the animals we consume are treated humanely and with respect, they give us life. Sometimes you get what you pay for, and we are paying a bigger price with our health, much of that I'd bet to the big drug companies who benefit from all of our maladies.

We shouldn't be supporting the corporations that keep animals in un-natural conditions, so that we can benefit from the lower cost. It doesn't cost that much to eat well and support respectful farming of the animals that nourish our bodies. We all need to eat a little less perhaps anyway, if we spend more, and get more out of that money spent, we need to eat less.

It costs very little to soak a cup of brown rice over night in 3 ½ cups of water, cook that in the morning for twenty minutes, and add chopped dried fruit, yogurt, bananas, and you get a LOT more out of it than from that cardboard boxed cereal. I like the savvy customer you mentioned in your email, though I can't purport to being to the level yet of never buying anything in a cardboard box. It does take time to come around from what we've all become so accustomed to, opening a bag of something you buy in the grocery store so that you can eat in ten minutes...

Perhaps we all need to take a step back from the more for less thinking that we've all fallen into, and think about what that cheap factory meat, and everything else we buy in bags and boxes, ready to eat in ten minutes, and what it actually does to our health. If we are suffering maladies from red meat consumption, then perhaps it is time to think about how that meat is being manufactured, and remember that if we fill those animals with drugs and garbage food, that is the quality of meat that we're going to get on our tables.

If we eat meat from animals who have been treated with respect and fed properly, we benefit in so many ways, healthfully, and morally. We have a responsibility to these animals who are entirely at our mercy, who are bred by, cared for by us, cannot survive without us. Their entire lives are in our hands. We owe it to them to stop buying garbage that is produced by factories. If we did this, perhaps we'd even see the return of more small family farms, more care for our environment, and better health for us in both regards.